In the third scene, after the battle and on the way back to report to Duncan at Forres, Banquo and Macbeth coincidentally meet the three witches. They greet Macbeth by saying “all hail thee Thane of Glamis, all hail thee Thane of Cawdor, all hail thee that shall be King hereafter”. At this point Macbeth doesn’t know that he is Thane of Cawdor and doesn’t believe what they are telling him. He attempts to question the three witches. This shows that the three witches played a big part in the killing of King Duncan. They used their spells and ‘words of wisdom’. The witches, in my opinion, persuade Macbeth a little too much into believing that he will become King and it gets to his head far too quickly. Macbeth was too weak to fight against the witches and was over ambitious; he believed what they were saying without questioning their motive. At this time in history witches were considered evil so the ‘noble’ Macbeth should have known better.
During the fourth scene Macbeth is officially told that he is the Thane of Cawdor and writes to his wife, Lady Macbeth, informing her of what the witches had said about him becoming the Thane of Cawdor. At this point Macbeth starts to become ambitious in his thoughts as Duncan names Malcolm as his successor as Prince of Cumberland, “Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter The Prince Of Cumberland”
Macbeth returns home and tells Lady Macbeth that Duncan is going to be staying for the night. Lady Macbeth immediately thinks of a plan for Macbeth to kill King Duncan and become King. In order for her to do this she asks the three witches to unsex her, “come on you mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood”. This makes Lady Macbeth a more evil person than she already is and can really convince Macbeth to kill King Duncan without Lady Macbeth having to do it and making herself feel bad.
When it comes nearer the time for Macbeth to kill King Duncan he starts to become anxious and does not want to commit the murder. He tells Lady Macbeth “we will proceed no further in this business” so she then questions Macbeths courage and love.
“Wouldst thou that have that which thou esteem’st the ornament of life, and live a coward in thine own esteem?” Lady Macbeth questions his manhood because she feels that this will make him kill King Duncan, and this will threaten him and make him feel that maybe he isn’t a man. Lady Macbeth is attempting to be very persuasive towards Macbeth. He is too weak to say anything back to her, either to disagree or agree so he eventually goes through with the murder.
The witches were a big influence in the killing of King Duncan as they were the ones that gave Macbeth the information that he would be given the title of Thane of Cawdor and King. Then when Macbeth became Thane of Cawdor the thought of being King the most probably got to his head and became egotistical. Also due to the fact that that when Macbeth is on his way to go and kill Duncan he pictured a dagger leading him on, “is this a dagger I see before me?” In reality he is just hallucinating before the scene of the crime. There is a possibility that this was part of the witches magic, their predictions earlier in the tragedy began the downfall of Macbeth. The witches also unsexed Lady Macbeth so it enabled her to persuade Macbeth into killing King Duncan.
The most influential force on Macbeth, which ultimately leads to his death, is in my opinion, that of the three witches. Without their influence and that of the dark forces of evil, connected with them, Macbeth may have never considered murdering his King. It is the witches’ predictions which sow the seeds of possibility, which fuel Macbeth’s desires and ambitions at the beginning of the tragedy. That is not necessarily to say that the witches’ prophecies were true, but simply that they ignited the dark, ambitious nature of Macbeth. It is also quite possible that the “dagger of the mind” is a creation of the witches designed to influence his behaviour and urge him on.
